A number one priority for Iola and Allen County is to build a compelling Internet presence, Stan Grigsby told Iola Rotarians Thursday. Most people get much of their information from the Internet. Building and maintaining a website that draws viewers is essential to community growth, he said.
In today’s world, he said, “a Web presence is it.”
Grigsby is working for Concept Analysis and Integration (CAI), a company he brought to Iola from Virginia last year when he decided he had had enough of traffic jams and high-cost living and moved back to Kansas.
CAI is a small high-tech company that concentrates on doing database assignments for the U.S. Navy. It has one full-time employee and three part-time workers, two of whom are students at Allen County Community College.
He also is employed by Iola Industries, Inc. on a contract basis with the goal of revitalizing and expanding Iola Industries’s economic development programs.
Iola and Allen County will have a better opportunity to attract new businesses if it can keep its designation as a federal HUBZone area. At present, unemployment and median family income levels are not sufficiently low enough to meet the qualifications, he said, although the median income level is very close.
HUBZone stands for Historically Underutilized Business Zones and is a federal program that gives financial incentives for small businesses to locate in the designated areas.
Grigsby is spending about half of his time on economic development. Among other things, he is is gathering work force data so that he can inform an inquiring industry how many workers they could hire in the area, what levels of expertise they can expect, what wage and benefit levels are typical and provide other wanted work force data.
Citing the fact that returning veterans have a 30 percent unemployment rate, he said he is looking for potential employers for area veterans.
Iola’s economy is weakened, he said, by two factors: revenue leakage and population loss.
“Revenue ‘leaks’ from the local economy when money earned here is spent elsewhere. The importance of buying locally should be constantly stressed,” he said, because strong local businesses build the community. Efforts to bring in new residents and keep those already here also pay dividends because new residents bring in new incomes, strengthen the city by the purchase of utilities and add to city, county and school district revenue with the taxes they pay, he said.
Grigsby was introduced by Bill Maness, former Iola mayor and currently a regional representative for U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran.
Web presence vital here, Rotary told
